"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last ...

By resurrecting a 3.2-billion-year-old enzyme and studying it inside living microbes, researchers at the University of ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. We’ve pieced together a remarkably detailed timeline of ...

By Sean Mowbray Invisible in their trillions, microbes dwell in our bodies, grow in soils, live on trees and are integral to planetary health. Yet the huge oversized roles these teeming biodiverse ...

More than 3.5 billion years ago, the Earth was not the hospitable world we know today. The atmosphere lacked oxygen, the seas were acidic and rich in iron, and volcanic activity roared across a barren ...

Scientists have warned that research into “mirror life” organisms — hypothetical life forms made up of molecules that perfectly mirror those found in regular life — should be stopped. Theoretically, ...